Behind the Gate
by NotedStrangePerson
Summary: If Wrath wanted to see his Mommy so badly, then Izumi would be waiting for him behind the Gate, not Sloth. For how could a souless being survive death?


Disclaimer: I do not own FullMetal Alchemist. Bugger.

_I haven't seen the entire series yet, or even the movie, so I'm basing most of this on clips I've seen on YouTube and FMA dedication sites. Didn't stop me writing. The characters are far too interesting (especially the homunculi) not to write about and I honestly have nothing better to do. Sorry if it's out of character or inaccurate. Please tell me any mistakes I've made and I will eventually correct them._

_Eventually._

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

**Behind the Gate**

'To Carry the Child'

To carry the child into adult life

Is good? I say it is not,

To carry the child into adult life

Is to be handicapped.

The child in adult life is defenceless

And if he is grown-up, knows it,

And the grown-up part looks at the childish part

And despises it.

The child, too, despises the clever grown-up,

The man-of-the-world, the frozen,

For the child has the tears alive on his cheek

And the man has none of them.

As the child has colours, and the man sees no

Colours or anything,

Being easy only in things of the mind,

The child is easy in feeling.

Easy in feeling, easily excessive

And easy in excess powerful,

For instance, if you do not speak to the child

He will make trouble.

You would say a man had the upper hand

Of the child, if a child survive,

I say the child has fingers of strength

To strangle the man alive.

Oh it is not happy, it is never happy,

To carry the child into adulthood,

Let children lie down before full growth,

And die in their infanthood.

And be guilty of no man's blood.

But oh, the poor child, the poor child, what can he do,

Trapped in a grown-up carapace,

But peer outside of his prison room

With the eye of an anarchist?

– Stevie Smith (Female. Died 1971)

His mother saw to it, inadvertently, that he would not suffer the weakness of being powerless and paralysed in the presence of what would have been his own body. Unlike the other homunculi. And for this he hated her.

There are some people who do not believe in coincidences. What were the chances he would escape from the gate, from all the other unclean unformed infants? What were the chances he would do so by taking the arm and leg of Fullmetal – the children Izumi had adopted, the children who at that moment were trying to resurrect the soul of their dead mother – the women he would adopt as his _real_ mother? When the others grew fed up of him and would have liked nothing better than put his head through the wall, Sloth comforted him, calmed his rages, and let him call her "Mama". He had never tried to hug Izumi when he felt frightened, he had never smiled at her with affection when she picked a crumb of food off his mouth, and he had certainly never heard her protect him and say "He's just a child!" when he was crying, naked and scared, from the assault from that idiot alchemist who claimed to have stolen his arm and leg. Izumi tried to strangle him

He grew attached to Sloth, and she cared for him too, and she would not let him go easy into the other side of the gate. Perhaps she recognised her genes in her former son's arm and leg. He loved Sloth. And he proved it when he used the advantage Izumi had kindly given him – in the form of a locket – to freeze Lust in her tracks, merely by the presence of the hair from the women he used to be. She wanted to die. And he was sure, whether or not her mind or brain was physically conscious, that at least for a fleeting moment, she could hear the blood gushing from her own neck.

Quite by accident he had caused his _real_ mother's death, using the arm of her former son, and when he tried to hold onto her again, he felt his skin burn away as he tore himself from her. He could not have FullMetal's mother. He could not have FullMetal's arm and leg, the Gate and 'that person' saw to it. For his sin, is the punishment of dismemberment.

He had always presumed, somewhere in his childish mind, that if he held onto her tightly enough she would never let him go. He would not be left Alone again, either in the bright light of the portal or the sun shining on the island that he and no one else could enjoy, and if she stayed he would become like Fullmetal – if he held on long enough. If he pleaded enough she might come back.

It did not sink in for a very long time, that however much he wanted something, he would not get it. He could not try to be a human, because he was not a human. He had tried to gain everything of Ed's and lost it. And in a moment of weakness, realised he had lost Izumi too. Just as the fire in Envy's heart – the very soul of the dragon – blazed out of control, so the fire in his heart dimmed and died. Anger made him stupid, but suffering had failed to make him anything but a homunculus. It did not occur to him until DEATH branded itself into him mind that the only option for him was to be as he was in sleep, to have nothing touch him or to touch anybody – _to not be_ – and the nearest possible thing was that he should die soon. Sloth was gone. Izumi was gone. And they were never coming back. Envy must have had these same thoughts, and felt meaning swell as he rejected the face of his creator too. Unlike Envy, no longer did he wish ill on humans. It would take him a step away from being Alone.

How could a creature with no soul live on after death? Why should he give up his limited life for someone who already had a chance of getting into heaven?

Perhaps rather than being a step away from Alone, he would take a step into Oblivion. Into Emptiness. He could not contemplate and brood, if he did not exist.

Although he could not analyse it for himself, Gluttony too felt an all-consuming hunger, hunger that gnawed and licked and bit away at his own insides, and even in devouring the body of the boy, could not be satiated. Alphonse might fare better.

Even between the teeth and the hot laboured gasps for blood he could hear his own breath in time with his heartbeat. It grew softer and softer, evermore shallow. It echoed in his ears. It made his body shudder. He wondered if you could still feel relief if you are dead. A bright light shone around him outside and inside his mind, and the mournfully creaking of doors he recognised and feared too well did not overcome him. And there she was.

On the other side of the gate stood someone he once recognised. She was clothed in innocence, although she didn't have a shred of material on her body. She reached out to him, without condemnation or judgement, and hugged him, even though he did not reach out to touch her in return.

The boy did not live up to his name as he lay himself in his mother's arms and let his hair flow, instead let a longing, peaceful look enter his eyes. Some philosopher's believe that man is not born with a soul, but that he has to earn it through Thought, and Suffering, and Love. In his fervour to give up his own life, so he had received another. He had died so somebody may live. The soulless homunculus took the place of another soul, and had gained one of his own in the process. The homunculi have always been the symbols of when Equivalent Exchange did not go according to plan.

A homunculus did not leave great works behind. Nothing he would be remembered by, not even a name to recall, could bring them back. His body was all that he left behind, a part of him that could be disowned. But his soul he kept, a part that could never be taken away from him.

His mother was glad to see him. She was smiling, he could tell even in the blinding light. He felt like he was walking on air. He wondered if she died too unfulfilled, grieving for the loss of another tainted body and lost child, called Wrath. But he's here now, reunited with his mother, Izumi, again.

_My work, if you can call it work, has become very mawkish recently (or using the technical term, "emo"). This is what happens when you don't take your pills._

_I will probably re-write this some time in the far future. Until then – please R&R!_


End file.
